It should come as no surprise that the favorite record of the year from a bunch of record store geeks was My Bloody Valentine's long-awaited return with mbv.

"A year heavy with vets, but no one had anybody more excited than My Bloody Valentine (this guy included.) The logical follow-up to Loveless – 22 years later – and it’s a total stunner. mbv is MBV doing what they do best, and quite certainly, it was worth all those delays and the epic wait. It has familiarity that’s instant, but still pushes guitar rock into new terrains like no one else can." —Aaron Detroit

“I really, really really did like [Daft Punk’s] Random Access Memories. I’ve seen it make it on the lists this year, but it seems like it’s not really getting too high up there. People are being kind of shitty to that record. It’s like a Rocky soundtrack or something. When that record came out this year, I was so stoked, I didn’t even know a new Daft Punk record was coming out. I know the one that came out before this last one didn’t do too well, and I knew they were kind of moving into soundtrack territory. That’s usually a clue that they’ve found their way into the golden land of making cinema scores. I was like, good for them, they’re geniuses. But I was blown away. It’s such a great blending of like modern pop music, which isn’t really that great, with classic pop music. Overall it’s just a really good pop record.”

2013 was a pretty great year for music and nothing quite cures that "where did the time go?" feeling like recollecting a year's worth of music enjoyment with conclusive consideration and whittling it down to a year-end list of bests. For putting together this here post I decided to drag out all the records I bought since last Christmas, spread them out on the floor like tarot cards, and listen to each of them one by one, like this:

And then write about them, like this:

The rub was trying to keep my list trim and fit thus accompanying my select "bests" are other titles I've enjoyed within the last twelve months. Happy New Year everyone! Peep my Best of 2013 on the downhill scroll...

LAST comes first not just because I'm a longtime avid supporter of Kyle Field as an artist and musician, but it just so happens that LAST was one of the very first new records I bought in 2013. LAST is one of those "total package" records about which I could spin infinite yarns of praise n' things regarding the songwriting, the recording, the artwork, and total overall vibe and I kind of already did that in the interview piece I put together last Spring and so I urge anyone interested in this two-fer plate of odd hip-hop with a lotta folk-rockin' goin' on to check it out as it'd be redundant to put further shine on this diamond.

We are wrapping up our 6th season of What's In My Bag?and we wanted to take a look back at the year that was 2013. It's been a fantastic year for us (we won a Webby Award!!) and this season featured a number of outstanding WIMB firsts.

Lots of love and countless hours of editing goes into making each video happen. They're a bit like our children, so picking our favorites is a daunting task. We tried to make a list of our Top 5 episodes, but that seemed impossible. Then we attempted a Top 10 list, but we couldn't narrow it down. So we settled on our 13 favorite episodes of 2013.

These are the episodes that surprised, excited and engaged us the most. These are the episodes that make us laugh upon repeat viewings. These are the episodes that we send to our friends to make them jealous about the work we do. These are the best “What’s in My Bag?” episodes of 2013. Enjoy!

The Australian soul singer may not be super well-known in the States yet, but she thoroughly charmed and entertained us. She talks about albums by strong women including PJ Harvey and Queen Latifah, deconstructing Frank Ocean songs, and shares some of her famously misheard lyrics. And then there's her fashion...

Every year around this time San Francisco mashup master DJ Earworm rolls our another one of his audio/video year end mashups of the top 25 major pop hits of the past year. Depending on how you felt about pop music in 2013 will pretty much determine how you much you like or dislike Earworm's ‘United State of Pop’ 2013 mashup megamix of hit songs since his mixing/blending/matching is pitch perfect and on point as usual. Subtitled “Living the Fantasy” this latest mix regurgitates such 2013 global pop hits as Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” Miley Cyrus' “Wrecking Ball," Eminem's "The Monster (feat. Rihanna)," Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' “Thrift Shop" ("Can't Hold Us" is in there too), Robin Thicke's unavoidable "Blurred Lines," Lady Gaga's "Applause," Lorde's "Royals" and sixteen others - the original full versions of which are all available at Amoeba Music.